An Experimental Study Of Cooperative Learning In Lowering Language Learning Anxiety In Senior School

Both the concept of cooperative learning and language learning anxiety have long been a hot topic in the field of foreign language teaching at home and abroad. The English New Curriculum Standard explicitly points out that the main task of the English course is to stimulate students’ interest, to foster students’self-confidence, to develop students’good study habits, effective learning strategies, self-learning ability and the spirit of cooperation. As a consequence, cooperative learning, as a leading learning approach, has been widely applied in the student-centered teaching practice. Meanwhile, foreign language educators and researchers have been paying much attention to learners’affective variables in language learning. Of all the affective variables, learning anxiety is possibly the most pervasive obstacle in the process of foreign language learning. Because of that, how to reduce learner anxiety in language learning has indeed become an urgent and important task facing all foreign language teachers and second language researchers. Such researches have been profoundly proved that language learning anxiety can be reduced through cooperative learning approach by a lot of research into foreign language learning anxiety. Aware of this, this study will make an investigation into whether senior students suffer from language learning anxiety. Also, an experimental plan will be made for cooperative learning to see its effectiveness in reducing language learning anxiety.This research is organized into five chapters. Chapter one is introduction about the background of the research as well as its purpose and significance. Chapter two is the literature review about cooperative learning and language learning anxiety including the relationship between cooperative learning and language learning anxiety. Chapter three and four are the main body of the thesis. This research is done in a local senior high school with the two classes which were both taught by the author as the subjects (altogether103students). The research which lasts a semester is aimed at finding the current situation of language learning anxiety among senior students by using questionnaires, examination results and interviews. The findings through the experimental analysis will be focused on the following questions:1) Are the senior students suffering from language learning anxiety currently?2) Can language learning anxiety be lowered through cooperative learning activities?3) How can teachers of English in senior high schools in China implement cooperative learning?In chapter5, based on data analysis and comparison, the author draws the following conclusions:1) Currently learners in senior high schools are more or less afflicted with English learning anxiety. To be more specific, nearly half of the learners suffer extremely high anxious feelings in the process of English learning. Among the factors associated with English learning anxiety, communication apprehension anxiety, fear of negative social evaluation and test anxiety are the most influential ones. In the meantime, it can also be deduced from this study that low proficiency learners experience greater anxiety than high proficiency students.2) Cooperative learning approach has an effect on arousing learners’interest in English learning, building their self-confidence and thus reducing learners’English learning anxiety.3) Based on the results of the research, the author puts forward some suggestions on how to implement cooperative learning in senior schools in China, which can greatly reduce learners’ language learning anxiety and improve learners’English proficiency.